Seven thoughts on Marvel: The Untold Story by Sean Howe
1. It’s a miracle any good comics ever get published by big companies. The book paints a picture of an industry where at a certain power level or higher almost everyone involved despises the p[…]

X-Factor 2012 Live Shows, Week 1
Last year I managed only two weeks of this before the faffery and tedium of the AGE OF BARLOW drove me away. So let’s see what happens this time. As usual I haven’t watched a second of the auditions, judges’ hou[…]

It’s time for my quarterly listen to THE UK TOP 40. Actually it was time a week or so ago but I didn’t write it up until a plane journey yesterday. So this is the Top 40 from 2 weeks ago (when our New Gangnam Overlords had only just enter[…]

It is time for me to get back in touch with The Kids, by listening to the UK Top 40 and putting it in order of how much I like it as I go. Best to worst. (more…)[…]

I’m going to try and get new Popular entries up too, but there will be a LOT of writing about pop by me this week on the One Week One Band blog, which I’m taking over for a second time – this time to talk about ABBA. Rather than pic[…]

Saint Etienne – Popular

Huge weepy thanks to Bob, Pete and Sarah for immortalising us in song. And thanks to commenters past and present for making it worth immortalising.[…]

I was suspicious of Live Action Role Playing for a long time. I had three excellent reasons: it couldn’t possibly work, it verged dangerously close to SPORTS, and most of all White Dwarf strongly hinted it was a stupid idea. At the time I took […]

There’s been some discussion on the latest Popular post about 1993 being a particular musical doldrum. I was 20 at the time – so enormously biased of course – but I don’t remember it like that, so I’m republishing an old[…]

It struck me this morning that it has been a while since I saw an article comparing social media to punk rock. This is a shame. For a time articles comparing social media to punk rock were one of the great growth areas in our dynamic knowledge econom[…]

So what was that poll all about then? (This poll, the one I linked on Twitter and Tumblr – a basic tick-the-box job on the best-selling music acts of last year)
Well, the truth is it was trying something out for my day job. I wanted to try out […]